Indications have emerged suggesting that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) may have finally dumped any further plans to resuscitate the ailing four national refineries following Tuesday’s announcement by the agency to establish a 100,000-barrels-per-day brownfield refinery each in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and in Warri, Delta State.
This stemmed from the fact that while making the announcement, no single comment on any plan by the Corporation to revive the national assets was made.
Business Hilights recalls that before now, an earlier move to seek approval for billions of dollars for their repairs at the National Assembly failed due to lawmakers’ fears and suspicion of possible erosion of approvals based on previous experiences on such appropriations without tangible results.
It would be recalled that NNPC had having noticed fund approval apathy, said it is working out another form of funding known as contract financing to stabilize the refineries, but that is yet to be seen even as it plans another set of new refineries to end excess capital flight on products importation.
NNPC also hinted the new refineries were part of its refinery collocation initiative designed to boost local refining capacity to end the era of petroleum products importation, adding that a group of investors had commenced the process of relocating a refinery that used to be owned by BP from Turkey to Nigeria.
According to the Group Managing Director, Maikanti Baru, the refinery from Turkey would be relocated and installed near the Port Harcourt refinery under the NNPC refinery collocation initiative.
He said in a statement that “Our collocation initiative aimed at getting private sector investors to bring in brownfield refineries so that they can share facilities is also yielding results. For example, there is one that is going to be brought in from Turkey to be located near the Port Harcourt refinery.
“It’s not a modular refinery; it’s a normal refinery with about 100,000bpd capacity. It was owned by the BP, but it has been sold off now to the companies that want to bring it over from Turkey to install it here.”
“There is another one of about the same size being looked at to be sited near the Warri refinery. But the one for Port Harcourt is at a more advanced stage. Our drive at the NNPC, as a leader in the industry, is to expand our local refining capacity and make Nigeria a global refining hub,” he said.
The Corporation averred that the Engineering Procurement Construction contractors and possible lenders were currently in Dubai to discuss the financing terms.
